


Pietra's Stories From the Road

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: (Sorry Pietra), Canon Divergence, I Can't Write Slow Burn What The Fuck, I regret everything, Multi, Slow Burn, Universe Alteration, discontinued
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 13:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2583743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, everyone knows the story-- get picked up by a random prince in a onesie, become said prince's tactician and most loyal friend, later on become posessed by a dragon god of destruction and kill the prince, save the world-- but let's say your twin gets that honor instead. That being said, what happens to you, and how does the fate of the world react?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Caesma and Pendragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our young friend wakes up in the field.

The air was warm, heated temperately by the light of the sun, and the grasses of the vast amounts of surrounding fieldlands swayed in the sweet-smelling breeze. The boughs of a low-hanging tree rustled gently, accompanied by the faint calls of various birds.  
  
Not far away, the town of Southtown went about its daily business in the April midmorning, though the townsfolk had to be wary of possible attack. The brigands always went for the poor farming towns, and reports had been made of attacks in the area, so it was best to be cautious.  
  
It had ended up being the scent of the breeze that woke up the young man unconscious under the dappled shade of a tree. His nose twitched, then wriggled, his features scrunching up along with it. There was an itch there that facial muscles just couldn’t seem to get. Then his hand went to his face to rid himself of the itch, solved with a sneeze powerful enough to scare away a songbird perched on the branches above.  
  
Well, that was one way to wake up.  
  
The youth ran his hands over his face, attempting to gather his bearings. He was in a field, under a tree, and evidently he could sneeze loud enough to scare away birds. And... wait. That was about it.  
  
Shouldn’t there be more to it? He must’ve come from _somewhere,_ after all, and he must’ve had _some_ sort of identity before falling asleep in the middle of a field. And a name, too. Which was...  
  
Gods. He couldn’t remember his own name.  
  
With a grunt of effort and a mild amount of leg flailing, he pushed himself to a sitting position. His head swam for a minute, but that faded quickly enough. Still didn’t explain much about why everything was blurry, though. _Very_ blurry, in fact. He couldn’t see the back of his own hand, nor attempt a guess at the purple splotch on it might’ve been. Was he blind?  
  
Wait, there was something under his other hand. Something small, made of metal and glass. He brought the object out to his field of vision and squinted at it. Two thick rectangles of glass, held together by a metal bridge, with foldable arms on each side. Eyeglasses?  
  
Probably his, then, he reasoned, blowing the dirt off of them and setting them on the bridge of his nose. The amount of clarity that brought was so jarring he jerked back in surprise, the glasses slipping right off his nose and onto his lap with a soft plop. Well, that wouldn’t do, because now he couldn’t see, so he put them back on and held them in place while he blinked, getting used to the clarity of vision.  
  
He couldn’t figure out what the hell was on his hand, other than some kind of purple mark. A brand, maybe? It looked a little creepy. Ominous, sort of.  
  
One hand on the trunk of the tree, the youth stood up. He stumbled a little at first, but it was easy enough to catch himself. The glasses, however, weren’t so lucky. Apparently they just plain didn’t want to sit on his face, and slipped right back off as he stood. Luckily he caught them, and put them back on. Somehow he sensed that that would be a recurring theme with those glasses.  
  
A weight at his side caught his attention, so he looked down. There was a sword hanging at his belt, and apparently some sort of strange book with a bolt symbol on the other side. That was sort of cool, he admitted, holding his glasses in place as he unsheathed the sword.  
  
A long blade, a bit dull and dented, but reliable and durable bronze anyway, he observed pragmatically. He concurred that it was indeed suited for battle, but perhaps might not prove as powerful as it could be.  
  
Then he wrapped both hands around the hilt and started swinging it around with a giant grin on his face. _Hyah! Hyah!_  
  
Playtime with the bronze sword came to an end when he spun a full circle and whacked himself in the nose with the flat of his blade, making him fall to the ground flat on his back and his glasses land somewhere to the side, the blade spinning out of his grip and stabbing itself into the dirt. Ouch.  
  
He sat back up, tossing his already-tousled hair determinedly, and wiped his bloody nose on the sleeve of his robe. If being knocked out and dumped in a field somewhere didn’t do him in, then an impertinent sword definitely wouldn’t. Now where did those glasses go?  
  
His vision clear once more, he pushed himself to his feet and tugged his sword out of the ground, which made him stumble and nearly fall all over again, but fortunately his glasses stayed on his face that time.  
  
Now in a standing position, he could get a better vantage for where he was. Fieldlands, he concluded first. Relatively flat terrain with few low-growing trees and shrubs sprinkled every now and then. Clearly a good portion of these fields had been cultivated for farming, judging from the crops growing. Best not to mess with that.  
  
A road wound through the countryside to a little town not far away. Maybe that’s where he was from, he mused, though he sort of doubted it. But villages had food and supplies, and given the fact that the only things he had to his name, whatever it might be, at the moment were an impertinent sword, a weird lightning book, an ill-fitting pair of glasses, and the clothes on his back, he probably needed a few other provisions, and probably a bag to hold it all in. That was, if he even had any money, which he also somehow doubted.  
  
Whatever the case may be, there were things in that town that he needed, and maybe he could help with crops or livestock or something in exchange for some of it.  
  
As he walked, a thought struck him so powerfully and with such urgency that he said it aloud before he even realized what he was thinking. “Pierre!”  
  
As the word came out, he stopped mid-step and marveled at just how strange that was. Surely it couldn’t be Pierre. It was obviously Pedro. Or Pippin, or Pepper, or maybe even something like Pendragon.  
  
Not-Pierre groaned out loud. Names were hard! He didn’t even know _why_ he was thinking that in the first place. It couldn’t be _his_ name, could it? Sheesh. With a name like Pippin or Pendragon, it was no wonder someone dumped him out here. Maybe it was a nickname, or a surname. It had to start with a P, he knew that much. Couldn’t explain why.  
  
“Your name can be Pendragon,” he decided, looking at the sword dangling at his side. “It’s a fine name for a fine sword, even if you did smack me in the face.”  
  
Pendragon the sword did not reply. The young man probably would’ve screamed if it did.  
  
“Now, you, on the other hand, don’t look much like a Pendragon,” he mused, looking to the tome on his other side. “Or any other P-name. I think you can be Caesma. I don’t know why, but I like that name a lot, even if it is just a string of vowels and things. I don’t really know what it does, kinda like I don’t know what you do yet either!”  
  
Again, no reply from the inanimate objects to which the youth was speaking.  
  
Gods, he must be crazy.  
  
But crazy or no, he did eventually reach the village. Southtown, he read off the sign. So apparently he could read. Maybe he was a student or something, or a magician or priest. He didn’t look very priestly at all, but it was possible.  
  
It seemed like a pretty normal town, all in all, though it wasn’t as if he knew much about that. Villagers wandered the streets, going about their business, and shopkeepers and craftsmen did their jobs. The youth noticed a few glances sent his way, especially towards Caesma and Pendragon, which chased off his guess that he could be from here.  
  
“Well, here goes nothing,” he muttered under his breath, pushing open the door to the nearest shop to begin his trip.  
  
An apothecary, he believed was the name of this sort of shop. Tonics and Vulnaries lined the shelves in colorful arrays, and collections of enhancing trinkets and talismans crowded along the back wall. Having a few Vulnaries would be useful. And they were cheap, which was absolutely useful, especially if he planned to wander elsewhere after he’d finished here.  
  
“How much for this?” he asked the shopkeeper at the counter, holding a container of three Vulnaries.  
  
The shopkeeper looked him up and down suspiciously. “Four hundred,” he grunted. “That a sword?”  
  
“Yeah, I named him Pendragon,” the youth said with a lopsided grin, fumbling through his pockets in search of change. “And, er. I don’t have any money. Maybe I could do something for you instead? Like maybe your shelves need re-alphabetizing, or okay okay I’ll go.” The glare the shopkeeper gave him turned him around mid-sentence, and he left without buying anything.  
  
Other requests at other shops didn’t really go any better. Odd glances were sent towards Caesma and Pendragon, and of course towards the youth carrying them. Was he /sure/ his name wasn’t Percival? Maybe it was, and he was just deluding himself. But Percival didn’t feel quite right, like any other name he’d thought of. Surely he had to have some sort of name. It’d just be ridiculous if he didn’t. After all, everyone had to have a name.  
  
So, considering the system these people had in place, the obvious solution was to go out and find somewhere he could earn some money. He wouldn’t steal it-- maybe he couldn’t fully remember which way his moral compass was turned, but stealing it, though it’d be pretty easy, just didn’t seem worth it.  
  
The only problem was that he had absolutely no idea where to do that. He’d thought that climbing a tree just outside of town might help him think, but that didn’t actually help matters much. He was just pondering what to do in a tree as opposed to on the ground, and his foot felt awkwardly squashed. There was an added risk of injury if he fell, but he didn’t see how that would prompt thought.  
  
At any rate, he wasn’t getting much thinking on what exactly to do now, in the tree or otherwise.  
  
He glanced to Pendragon, still dangling at his right. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any brilliant ideas?”  
  
The sword did not reply.  
  
“Big help you are,” he mumbled. “But then, you don’t strike me as much of a thinker. Smasher, yeah, but not really a thinker.”  
  
Predictably, there was no response.  
  
“What about you, then?” he asked, looking at the tome on the other side. “You’re probably the more intelligent one here. Any ideas you’d like to contribute?”  
  
No response from the tome.  
  
“Hmmm.” He knit his eyebrows pensively. “That doesn’t help much, you know. I mean I know you can’t exactly reply, but still.”  
  
He sighed. “I’m sure I’ll come up with something. I just need the right sort of inspiration, and suchlike.”  
  
Hanging his glasses on the neck of his shirt, he leaned back in the tree and watched the blurred forms of branches swaying gently above him. It would probably be much prettier if he could see it, but the glass was starting to hurt his nose.  
  
The gentle breeze made audible by the foliage was steady, the glare of the sun kept off of his face through the shade of the tree. Although the branch was hardly the most comfortable place to rest, it was kind of nice.  
  
Not-Percival (alternately named Maybe-Perry) hadn’t meant to take a nap. He’d just figured that it was a little bright out and he was kinda tired after all that thinking he’d done, so it wouldn’t be too terrible of an idea if he just rested his eyes a bit, yeah? So that’s what he did, and it turned out to be a nap.  
  
He awoke to the smell of the town burning.


	2. Wandering Warriors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Southtown is saved from burning, thanks to our yet-unnamed protagonist.

His first thought was that naps were a bad idea, obviously, because they led to nearby towns catching on fire. His second was that something along the lines of wait, no, that’s ridiculous. His third was something along the lines of Peter, which sounded only slightly less wrong than the other names. Maybe he’d gotten the root right. But, well, the town was on fire, so that probably wasn’t the best thing to think about.  
  
He jumped down from the tree in one movement-- a bad idea, he found a split second after when the force of it made his lower legs ache something awful and his glasses fall off of his nose again. Maybe he should attach weights to them or something, he grumped as he fumbled in the grass for the impertinent pair of lenses.  
  
Upon starting to sprint towards the town at full tilt for reasons he wasn’t fully aware of, he wondered why he was remembering his name only now, as opposed to some other time. He also wondered why he was running _towards_ the currently-burning town, instead of _away_ from it, which would seem like the more logical thing to do.  
  
Although he liked to think that he was sprinting in a lithe, cool manner like a tiger or something, the reality was that he had a floppy, awkward run-hop that involved his arms being out to his sides and the sleeves of his robe flopping about, and his weaponry bouncing. But at least his robe was the right size, so he wasn’t tripping over it or anything. One hand held his glasses by one of the arms, leaving the other to bump and bounce as he ran-hopped to the town.  
  
He skidded to a stumbling stop at the entrance to the town, where bumpy cobblestones with weeds growing between stones met the dirt country road through the fields. The same stones that were now littered with soot and debris from the looting and pillaging happening-- or, at least, the looting and pillaging that had been happening, judging from the fact that no one was actively looting or pillaging anymore.  
  
Brigands, it seemed, a band of them. Not many, only around five, and they seemed to be fairly well occupied by a few warriors defending the town, though they were outnumbered. But the brigands were outmatched, and it seemed to him that the warriors would get a clean victory.  
  
But he didn’t waste time thinking on it. The town was in flames and although the warriors were doing their best, it just wasn’t possible to fight the brigands and the fires at the same time. The townspeople needed help, and to his (in hindsight, rather skewed) moral compass, the obvious person to help them was him.  
  
He sprinted once again towards the sources of flame, skirting around burning rubble and jumping over whatever came in his path. The townspeople had formed a bucket brigade with the water from the water pumps and wells, but it just wasn’t enough. It appeared to be time for a little bit of innovation.  
  
“Get away from there!” he shouted, pulling out Pendragon the Impertinent Face-Smacking Sword as he ran for the line of more-than-a-little-panicked villagers.  
  
“And just what are _you_ planning on doing?” the leader of the bucket brigade shouted back, sneering. “You can’t stab fire with a sword!”  
  
“We don’t have time to argue!” the youth argued, pushing up the sleeves of his oversized robe and whacking at the metal piping of the water pump. “You need all the help you can get, frankly, and I don’t see any reinforcements arriving anytime soon. Now help me with this, uh... whatever this is.”  
  
The brigade leader had to admit that. He and a few others began yanking the rust-weakened pump head off while the youth took his position on top of a stack of crates and shouted directions at the rest of the bucket brigade. The sides of the fire were the priority, counterproductive as that may have been, but the youth was about eighty-five percent sure he knew what he was doing.  
  
The pump was yanked free with a burst of water, making those who were pulling on it stumble back. Water shot into the air with more force than really seemed possible, spraying just as the youth had planned-- had he planned this?  
  
“Everyone, stand back,” he called, setting Pendragon aside and pulling out Caesma the Sparky Book Thing. It was all about conductivity, he thought, at least that was what he was pretty sure of. Water conducted electricity, as did metal. And this was magical electricity, not just electricity, and he was pretty sure he’d studied this before.  
  
Though it was a clear day, thunder rumbled, and clouds gathered overhead as the book began to spark with electricity, the pages flipping under the youth’s open hand. He started chanting something he couldn’t repeat if he tried as the thunder grew louder and lightning flashed in the clouds above. And then he turned his hand to the burning town as glowing runes grew before it, crackling with lightning just as the sky was, reacting both with the spraying droplets of water in the air and with the tome’s lightning that connected the two.  
  
All at once, the sky above was alight with lightning and thunder crashed in a cacoughany of conjured weather, and all was perfectly still for a split second.  
  
Then the rain began, a downpour that smothered the fire and soaked everyone standing indiscriminately, dying to a stop as the fire sputtered out and the clouds faded back to a clear blue sky.  
  
The brigands had been vanquished. The fires were out. Everyone was soaking wet, townspeople and warriors alike, but the threat was gone.  
  
A second of silence.  
  
The youth, now soaked to the bone and still standing on a crate, cleared his throat and shifted on his feet a little, which was a /very bad idea/ given that the soaked wood gave way the next second, sending him toppling to the ground. “Well, uh, that wor _AAAAUGHSHIT_ \--”  
  
He never hit. The town had erupted into cheering, a mass of villagers keeping him from hitting the ground and miraculously setting him on his feet, a few yards away from the visiting warriors-- who looked very strangely familiar. Maybe they thought he was one of them?  
  
The youth laughed in a mixture of awkwardness, nervousness, and relief, shaking the water off his glasses in hopes it’d help him actually see. The warriors didn’t acknowledge him, though the one that seemed to be their leader glanced at him in a mixture of suspicion and interest. Which was odd, but the youth (really, was he _sure_ he wasn’t Peter?) didn’t pay much attention to that, since he couldn’t really see and all.  
  
But that was a relief, the fact that he wasn’t being shunned for the fact that everyone in town is now absolutely soaked and the town was half-burned. Feast planning was underway. Though the warriors didn’t seem to want to stay, even soaked as they were-- they must be on some tight schedule, the youth reasoned, to make them have to leave so early. Probably off to go fight bandits in another part of the country, whatever the country was. What a cool job to have.


	3. Marth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is finally named, and a visitor appears.

_Pietra._  
  
That was it. That had to be it. What else could it possibly be? It was highly unlikely to be some bizarre beginning of a treasure hunt around the world for the answer to a question no one even knew, and even then, what kind of mysterious guiding figure would put the first clue _there,_ of all places? By all accounts, it didn’t make any sense.  
  
“You’re right, it has to be my name,” our young friend decided, looking to Pendragon propped up between the wall and the floor. “It sounds kind of like _a_ name, anyway, and it doesn’t make any sense for it to be anyone else’s name, because of where it is. So unless, before passing out, I beat up some poor sap and stole his underwear, it has to be my name.”  
  
The sword did not reply, but the youth was quite used to that by now. He nodded assuredly, looking at the wood-paneled wall in front of him. Yes, that name sounded right. He could see himself being called Pietra, and it did sound a little bit like Peter. Plus, with the fact the name was sewn into his underwear, the odds were highly likely that was his name.  
  
“But I think that’s enough dilly-dallying, isn’t it?” he said to himself, reading the name on the hem of his underpants one more time before starting to put them on. “The innkeeper was nice enough to let me stay here the night because I helped put the fire out, so I should probably get to breakfast on time. Don’t you think?”  
  
While putting on his coat, Pietra wondered why it was he kept talking to his equipment. It wasn’t like they could respond in any way. Talking to an animal companion was one thing, because animals could kind of respond, but inanimate objects? That was just silly. And with full knowledge of this, Pietra didn’t see himself stopping anytime soon.  
  
But with those thoughts put to rest, Pietra left Caesma and Pendragon in the room he’d been given and made his way downstairs, assuming that having one’s weapons at the breakfast table was a bit of a faux pas.  
  
He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he found himself practically inhaling breakfast, and the innkeeper whapping the back of his head firmly.  
  
“Haven’t even been here a day and you’re eatin’ me out of house and home,” she chided. “Take a minute to breathe, why don’t you?”  
  
“Sorry, ma’am,” Pietra said sheepishly after swallowing his final bite. “I was hungry, is all. And your cooking is amazing!”  
  
The innkeeper chuckled. “You flatter me, lad. But don’t eat all of it, I have hungry guests to feed that don’t rise quite as early as you do.”  
  
“I know a little about cooking,” he brought up. “If you need it, I could help you make more.” He remembered something about oils and water not mixing, at least. That counted, right?  
  
“You’re a kind young man, but I reckon the rest of the town needs more help than I do,” the innkeeper replied, shaking her head. “Those blasted brigands did a number on our town, and loathe as I am to say it, the Shepherds aren’t the best at cleanin’ up after their battles!”  
  
“The Shepherds?” he asked. “That was the group of warriors that came through yesterday?”  
  
“Prince Chrom’s Shepherds of Ylisse,” the innkeeper confirmed. “A good lot, all of them. I was surprised you weren’t one of them, the way you handled putting out the fires!”  
  
Pietra chuckled modestly. “I wasn’t really sure what I was doing, to tell you the truth. I just… did what came naturally. Which I guess is ordering people around? That doesn’t sound too good, now that I think about it.”  
  
“You’re a leader,” she assured him. “And that’s what people need in times of crisis. Now if you’re done, wash up quick. The town still isn’t built back up yet.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am!” Pietra nodded, handing his now-empty dishes to the innkeeper and taking his coat off the back of the chair.  
  
It was a nice thought, having a quality people needed. And the people in this village seemed nice, and after he’d helped their town not get demolished, they seemed happy to have him. But as nice as it was, Pietra couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed to be somewhere else.  
  
That day was not the day he’d be a leader, though. The villagers had started rebuilding bright and early, earlier than Pietra had gotten up, so there was nothing for him to take charge of. But he was young and strong(ish), so there were plenty of jobs for him to do. He carried loads back and fourth, held things steady, and there was an awful lot of running around with boxes full of various items. Tough work, but not impossible, and the village looked a lot better by nightfall.  
  
And while the rest of the village celebrated a job well done, Pietra wandered idly around the darkened outskirts, kicking at stray pebbles and looking at the acres of orchards and fields surrounding for miles. The night breeze was refreshing after a hot day of work, but Pietra wasn’t thinking about how sweaty he was.  
  
“Maybe I’m not supposed to be here,” he said to himself, and partially to Pendragon at his side. “It was nice helping out, and being needed, but… I can’t stay here.”  
  
“You can’t,” a voice called from the darkness, and Pietra nearly jumped out of his skin. Had he actually gone insane?  
  
“Well, uh, voice, what makes you say that?” he called back, reflexively pulling Pendragon into a guarded stance. Oh gods the sword was talking. Oh gods he really _was_ insane.  
  
He heard footsteps, quiet footsteps on the dirt road. Every instinct in his body said to run, but he didn’t, partially because he was paralyzed by abject terror and partially because his glasses would fall off and he’d never find them again. Which was really bad, because he couldn’t see shit without them.  
  
“You’re not supposed to be here,” the voice said, a bit louder. Pietra couldn’t tell much about the person speaking, but they weren’t old. Maybe it was just a kid playing a prank, though he also doubted that.  
  
The speaker stepped forward, coming into the dim, distant light from the village. A kid, it looked like, maybe just a bit younger than Pietra. Short blue hair, or maybe tied up, with a butterfly-shaped mask covering the speaker’s face. Though they were certainly trying to sound much older than they actually were, it seemed, with the cryptic wording and such. A sword hung at their side, not drawn, but Pietra didn’t feel assured enough this presence wasn’t hostile to put his away.  
  
“Who are you?” he asked, since obviously that is the first thing you say to someone you don’t know who seems to know you.  
  
“That isn’t important,” the speaker replied cooly. “Why are you here?”  
  
Pietra shrugged, the tip of his sword lowering. “The villagers needed help, so I helped them out. That’s really all.”  
  
“You know that it isn’t,” the speaker insisted, stepping further forward with a hand on his sword. “You’re supposed to be with your sister, where is she?”  
  
Pietra balked. “Wait, what? I have a sister.”  
  
The speaker muttered a ‘dammit’ under his breath. “I should’ve figured you wouldn’t know,” he muttered, then something about Naga and amnesiacs Pietra couldn’t discern.  
  
“Hold on, go back to the part where I have a sister,” Pietra said, sheathing Pendragon and folding his arms. “I can’t remember anything. That much I know. But if I’m supposed to be with this supposed sister, where is she, and why don’t I know about it?”  
  
“I don’t know that much!” the speaker said, clearly frustrated. “All I know is you’re supposed to be somewhere else, and that somewhere else is obviously /not here./ Which makes my job infinitely harder!”  
  
“So you just came here to tell me I’m in the wrong place, but nothing more than that,” Pietra summed up.  
  
“No, I mean, yes, I mean— _rrrgh,_ “ the speaker growled in annoyance. “Look. You go by what feels right, don’t you? Do that. Just… consider me a wake-up call, or something like that. And north is probably a decent enough place to start.”  
  
“North,” Pietra repeated. “So I go north, I find my sister. That sounds deceptively simple.”  
  
“It’s either go north or stay here your whole life,” the speaker sighed. He was probably rolling his eyes behind the mask. “In the end, I can’t say what you do. Maybe it’s easier this way.”  
  
“Well…” Pietra said thoughtfully. “I guess I have to go somewhere, since I can’t stay here my whole life, right? And having some idea of where to go is better than picking a random direction and taking what it gives. So even if you are kind of frustratingly vague and cryptic, thanks for that!”  
  
“Much obliged,” the speaker grumbled. “Just… be careful, will you? Whatever you end up doing.”  
  
“I’ll try my best,” Pietra promised. “I never got your name, by the way?”  
  
“Marth,” the speaker said simply. “Now go. You have a long road ahead of you.”  
  
And with that, the speaker— Marth, apparently— turned on a heel and left Pietra alone, walking back into the darkness of the countryside.


	4. Room to Learn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pietra meets Donnel, who graciously offers him a ride.

Something wasn’t right here.  
  
The map was the most current edition Pietra could get his hands on. His compass was working right— compasses didn’t even really break, did they? Probably not unless the magnet was busted somehow. He was sure the place was named correctly, and signs didn’t lie, right? But it just didn’t make sense. There was a problem here, and Pietra just couldn’t wrap his mind around it.  
  
He’d stopped to eat a bit of lunch on the outskirts of this next little town. The villagers of Southtown had been very nice in sending him on his way, with stuff like some sandwiches and socks and a sweater and a fishing pole, even though he didn’t really know how to fish, and also a box of cookies! He’d made the decision to save those for when he really needed them, though he wasn’t really sure when that might be.  
  
The fact that it was lunchtime and he was hungry only made the problem more prevalent, because he just couldn’t figure it out. He needed food to figure it out, but the problem was distracting him from getting food. It was all a vicious cycle that could easily be ended with him just figuring out the problem.  
  
Pietra sighed, kicking at a mound of leftover spring slush on the ground as he glared at the sign. What a stupid sign. Well, not really, it was just doing its job, and it was a pretty normal sign. Wooden, with brass fastenings keeping it on the post, and chipped paint. Pointing east, down a battered road, through forest growth and down to a supposed spot of civilization.  
  
He’d gone south, was the issue. Mostly east, sure, but _south_. From _Southtown._  
  
_Why was it called Southtown if there were other towns further south?_  
  
Pietra just couldn’t seem to make sense of it. He glared at the sign from across the road while eating his lunch, munching on his apple like it’d help his brain figure out just what the deal was. Munch munch munch. And all that time, the sign just stared back at him, or it would if signs had eyes to stare with, without giving a single clue as to Pietra’s current puzzle.  
  
He was so caught up in his puzzle, in fact, that he didn’t notice the horse and cart that came to a stop next to him, or the scruffy-looking boy that got off and carefully stood next to him, wondering why this strange man was glaring at the sign like that.  
  
“Uh… mister? Y’okay there?”  
  
“It’s farther south,” Pietra said bluntly to the voice that hadn’t been there a second ago.  
  
“… ‘Scuse me?”  
  
“Farther _south,_ “ he repeated, turning his head to the boy. “You can look at any map and see it. It’s mostly east, sure, but it’s also further south, and I just don’t get it.”  
  
The boy frowned, scratching at his hair under the dented cooking pot on his head. “I guess the Farfort _is_ pretty dang far south,” he admitted. “But what’s the hangup?”  
  
“It’s more complicated than that,” Pietra tried to explain. “See, I came from Southtown. And by the name of it, you’d think that’d be the city furthest to the south in the realm, right? But it isn’t! Only it’s still _called_ Southtown. I just think it’s a misnomer.”  
  
The boy shrugged. “I ain’t never given that much thought. Never been to Southtown, neither. Maybe it’s ‘cause we ain’t really on the mainland, an’ Southtown is, I reckon. So Southtown’s the furthest south on the mainland. Not countin’ islands an’ such.”  
  
Pietra blinked, then stared at the boy— who now looked slightly intimidated— with wide eyes. “I didn’t think of that. You’re a genius.”  
  
The boy shrugged humbly. “Just thought it made sense, s’all.”  
  
It did, and that would be what most people, when presented with the problem, would conclude. But Pietra had a knack for not noticing the obvious, maybe as a side effect of getting dropped in that field.  
  
“So, if you don’t mind me askin’, mister,” the boy began. “You said you was just in Southtown, right? That mean you’re a traveler?”  
  
“If I am, I’m one that hasn’t done much traveling,” Pietra admitted. “I started in Southtown and someone told me I’d find my sister if I went north. And I did _start_ with going north, but that didn’t turn out so well, since I ended up going relatively east. Though east is as good a direction as any! Now I can honestly say I have somewhere I’m going, and I have somewhere I’ve been.”  
  
The boy nodded, awed, through the speech. “So you _are_ a real traveler, huh? Dang, that sounds right fun, travelin’ around like that! You don’t gotta do nothin’ or go nowhere you don’t want.”  
  
“I guess?” Pietra shrugged. “I helped the people in Southtown clean up their town after some brigands attacked, but that’s because it’d be the right thing to do.”  
  
“Sounds like a good way to travel, helpin’ people,” the boy reasoned. “I reckon I’d be good at that, since I ain’t good at leadin’ much myself, but I can do most what anyone tells me to! I got a lotta skills, I think. Least, I know how to do some stuff. Whatever ma needs, mostly.”  
  
This boy apparently talked quite a lot, but Pietra didn’t mind so much. “Sounds like you’re already on your way to being a traveler! Just without the traveling.”  
  
“If I did travel, who’d help my ma?” he said, like it was obvious. “Someone’s gotta do it, after all. Figure I might as well, since I live with her and all.”  
  
“Sound reasoning there,” Pietra agreed. “So you’re from the Farfort, then?”  
  
“Sure am!” the boy said proudly. “Donnel Tinhead, from the Farfort! Most everyone calls me Donny, though.”  
  
“That’s a fitting last name,” Pietra noted. “I’m Pietra, don’t know about a last name, from no country in particular, I guess. Can I guess you’re headed back to the Farfort right now?”  
  
“Yep!” Donnel nodded. “Gotta deliver me these supplies back to town, else it’ll be a tough springtime with all the rain that comes up from the ocean. Them storms are rough, ‘specially on ships. S’why we’re gettin’ deliveries from land, ‘stead of by ship. We ain’t gotten a ship for awhile.”  
  
“I guess most ships are going to and from places less prone to storms,” Pietra mused. “So Donny, mind if I tag along? Travel is better when you’ve got someone to talk to.” Someone that talks back, anyway. Carrying on an entertaining conversation with one’s equipment was kind of tough.  
  
Donnel’s face lit up. “‘Course you can! And heck, if you need it, my ma’ll prolly let you stay for dinner an’ the night if you ain’t got somewhere to stay. So long as you help out with chores an’ such, of course, but you said you do that anyway, so that ain’t a problem, right?”  
  
“No problem at all,” Pietra agreed, packing his lunch back up and slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I guess we should get going then, if people are waiting on those supplies, huh?”  
  
“Oh, right!” Donnel remembered, going back over to the horse and cart. “There’s room in the back if you wanna just ride back there. I’ll bet you’re plumb tuckered out from walkin’ all the way from Southtown?”  
  
Pietra climbed in the back of the cart gratefully. “From Southtown and then some,” he confirmed. “And I got lost for awhile there. I don’t know how I did it. Maybe I just have a talent for getting caught up in my own head and forgetting I have to actually follow a road. I just start thinking as I walk, and the next thing I know I’ve walked right off the path and I’m a mile away from where it turned.”  
  
“Maybe there oughta be an enchantment for that,” Donnel remarked, clicking the horse into gear after he climbed on the front of the cart. “Someone could make you a map that tells you exactly where you are, ‘stead’a just havin’ to guess, like on regular maps. You could be this lil’ glowin’ blip, right where you are in the world!”  
  
Pietra chuckled. “Yeah, that sounds like it’d work for me.”  
  
“I don’t know much’a nothin’ ‘bout magic,” Donnel remarked. “Figure it takes a special kinda person to learn, an’ I ain’t that kinda person. Don’t think I’m a kinda person for anythin’ but bein’ a farmhand, really.”  
  
“Don’t say that,” Pietra replied, tsking and setting his bag on a hay bale. “I bet there’s a lot of things you’re good for, Donny! Everyone has room to learn.”  
  
“If you say so,” Donnel shrugged, leaving that to be that as the Farfort came into view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> donnel is like 500 years ahead of his time thinking up a gps man like four 4 u donny u go donny


	5. Desert Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donnel and Pietra bond.

The Farfort, named so because it had once been an army outpost and it was far away from a lot of things, wasn’t that different from Southtown. It was just a lot colder, and not as much a farming town as it was a hunting-and-fishing town. Of course, farms did _exist,_ but it was clear they were more family farms as opposed to farms that provided crops for all of Ylisse. At least, that was what Pietra could tell, from scattered knowledge he had about agriculture.  
  
He had scattered knowledge about a lot of things, he’d found. Random trivia about things like glassmaking and cooking and physics and things like that, that wasn’t really useful for the moment but it was interesting information. Usually such knowledge came at times when a random situation reminded him of some completely random bit of largely irrelevant trivia that only served to make Ma Tinhead mildly exasperated and say something like “That’s nice, darlin’, but that jam ain’t gonna make itself.” At which point, of course, Pietra would apologize and continue stirring.  
  
Scattered knowledge was what allowed him to get by living on a working farm, it seemed, because whatever bit of knowledge he dug up, it was always useful for something— even if it wasn’t the task at hand. Sometimes it took a few tries, but something always happened.  
  
Today’s task involved gratuitous amounts of hay— at least, the amount was gratuitous to Pietra, who had absolutely never seen such an amount of hay in his life. It was absurd, to him. What kind of foul hell-creature needed this much hay? And more to the point, why wasn’t there a better way to move it than by pitchfork?  
  
“You’re awful good at this,” Donnel commented, ducking another swing of Pietra’s hay-laden fork. “Usually pa has to do it, but he’s gettin’ old and I ain’t tall enough to swing the fork.”  
  
“Lucky me,” Pietra grunted, wiping sweat off his forehead. Southtown was cold, cold enough for it to be halfway through March and patches of slushy snow still exist on the ground. It was too cold for Pietra to take his sweater off, but under it he was uncomfortably warm, and his sweat made him feel clammy. Manual labor in cold weather, he noted, was something to be avoided.  
  
“Naw, really!” Donnel insisted. “You’re bein’ a big help. Ma don’t even seem to mind havin’ you around! Prolly ‘cuz you’re better at the chores’n I am.”  
  
“Hurf,” was Pietra’s reply, as he continued to move the hay from its position in the wagon to a gigantic pile in the barn. There was a hayloft, too, but Pietra had no idea how they’d even gotten the hay up there. Did they use a longer pitchfork and more muscular strength? That would be a question to ask.  
  
Donnel swung his legs idly as he sat on a nearby tree stump. “Say, Pietra, you know anything ‘bout fishing?”  
  
Pietra let the pitchfork rest, and he leaned on it to give an appropriate answer. “I don’t think I’ve ever been fishing in person, but I’ve probably read about it, why?”  
  
“‘Cuz it’s awful boring, but pa says I gotta go catch us somethin’ for dinner,” Donnel sighed. “I figgered since you know a lotta stuff, you might know something ‘bout how to catch a good fish. An’ you’ve got that pole, too.”  
  
“I guess there’s no harm in trying,” he said with a shrug, hefting the last forkful of hay into the wagon and setting the fork against it. “Maybe I have been fishing, and I just can’t remember it. Who knows?”  
  
“Maybe tryin’ it out’ll help ya get the mem’ries back,” Donnel suggested. “I know a great spot, pa and I go there a whole lot! I’ll show ya the way.”  
  
Which he did. Pietra had never really known what constituted a good fishing spot, but the way Donnel talked about it, he assumed this particular locale was a good one. He didn’t really know much about fishing, of course, but from the miscellaneous knowledge he had, he’d guess a good fishing spot was somewhere quiet, somewhere people didn’t fish too often, somewhere out of the way. And of course it depended on what type of fish one wanted to catch, but the clarity and depth of the water mattered too. And there was a whole bunch of other random trivia even Pietra didn’t think mattered to much in those books, too, and Pietra had hung onto it for whatever reason.  
 Donnel’s fishing spot was a good-sized pond not too far down a slushy, trampled path through the woods away from the farm. He gestured to it with enthusiasm, the sleeves of his jacket pushed up and a fishing pole slung over his shoulder. “See, there! Right where I said it’d be!”  
  
“I’d be concerned if it wasn’t,” Pietra commented, inspecting the pond from the marshy shore. The soles of his boots sank into the cold mud, and he was glad the leather was high-quality and treated well. They were some damn nice boots.  
  
Donnel had sat himself down on a nearby rock and busied himself with trying to wrangle with the hooks. “My pa an’ I made some hooks already, but he’s better at n’me. It’s harder’n it looks, makin’ these things. You know much ‘bout fishhooks?”  
  
“I’m from the desert,” Pietra remembered, though the newness of the memory was gone in a disappointing second. He remembered small hands on cold stone and the view out a slender window onto dunes and dark red mountains in the distance, and a sky so blue it hurt to look at. And there were splashes of green but he couldn’t see much of them, because they were close to wherever he’d been, and because his glasses had cracked and fractured his view.  
  
Donnel’s eyes widened, his head tilting. “Well, gosh! Didja remember somethin’?”  
  
“Yeah,” Pietra nodded, furrowing his eyebrows. “I remember looking out a window, out onto the desert. I must’ve been little. It’s weird, though, now it feels like it’s always been there.”  
  
“Maybe yer from Plegia,” Donnel guessed. “It’s a desert. Mostly, anyway. S’got some mountains an’ lakes an’ a big river an’ such, too. Can’t all be desert. Come to think of it, though, you _look_ Plegian, too. Don’t see that often.”  
  
“Where’s that?” Pietra asked. “Plegia, I mean.” He felt something when he said that name— something that felt like a jolt of electricity across his tongue. Plegia was important, even if he didn’t really know why.  
  
“Uhh, west of here,” Donnel explained, scratching at his messy hair. “Just west’a Ylisse, actually. Them mountains are the border. Awful un-neighborly of ‘em, pa says, blockin’ ever’one out like that. But I guess they gots their reasons.”  
  
“I guess they do,” Pietra agreed. “Is being Plegian a bad thing?”  
  
“Some folks think so,” Donnel admitted, frowning. His fingers worked absently at getting a worm on one of the fishhooks as he spoke. “They say it’s ‘cause Plegia’s nothin’ but bandits an’ brigands. An’ I guess there’s an awful lot people’ve seen lately, but I don’t think that’s true. Can’t have a country’a nothin’ but brigands. It’d be like if Ylisse was nothin’ but clerics and choir boys!”  
  
“I don’t think I’m either of those,” Pietra muttered, if only for comic relief. “Though I see your point.”  
  
“An’ y’know what else,” Donnel continued. “Even if you were a bandit or brigand, I wouldn’t think no bad’a you, ‘cause you ain’t been nothin’ but helpful to me an’ my ma and pa! Doubt a brigand would help out so much. An’ you never complain ‘bout nothin’, neither. Ma likes that.”  
  
“If I were a bandit or brigand, even if I remembered being one, I would be one of the good ones,” Pietra decided. “At least I’d try, anyway. I’m not sure what a good brigand acts like.”  
  
“I guess they’d just act like a normal person,” Donnel guessed. “Say, you gonna fish with me?”  
  
Pietra had intended to do that, since that was the reason they were out there. It didn’t take long to get the worm on the hook and then the hook in the water, and after that all they had to do was wait for something to bite.  
  
Donnel sighed. “I still gots a lot to learn about fishin’ an’ all. Wish I could hurry up an’ learn it faster.”  
  
“Why’s that?” Pietra asked, shifting himself on his rock seat.  
  
“Ma says girls go fer the feller that caught the biggest fish,” Donnel explained. “Lessun he gots good muscles an’ a nice farm, that is. An’ since I don’t gots much muscle an’ the farm’s still my pa’s, I gotta catch a big fish if I’m gonna get a wife.” (Something about that sounded like a metaphor to Pietra, but he didn’t point it out.)  
  
“Don’t look so crestfallen,” Pietra said, nudging Donnel’s arm. “You’re what, fifteen? You’ve got a while yet to catch a big fish.”  
  
“I guess,” Donnel admitted. “What about you, though? Yer grown. Not’s grown as my pa, but grown. You got a wife yet?”  
  
“If I do, I don’t remember her,” Pietra sighed. “Gosh, that’s an awful thought. Imagine if I _did_ have a wife. I’d have left her all alone with no explanation!”  
  
“That’s horrible!” Donnel looked appropriately troubled. “Why, I’d never leave nobody like that. Least I’d write ‘em a letter sayin’ I wasn’t killed or kidnapped or nothin’.”  
  
“If I do have a wife, or someone special, wherever she is,” Pietra decied. “I’m going to try my hardest to get my memories of her back, so I can tell her I’m okay. And that she doesn’t have to worry anymore, because— well, because I’m coming home!”  
  
“Yeah!” Donnel agreed enthusiastically, thrusting a fist into the air. “An’ yer gonna bring back a big fish, too— the biggest!”  
  
Pietra chuckled in agreement. He hadn’t noticed any signs of betrothal on his person, so it was likely that was just a hypothetical thought. For the sake of whoever may have been married to him, he hoped they weren’t missing him too much.  
  
Donnel seemed cheered by the conversation. “Y’know, I did catch a good trout once, with pa last spring,” he recalled. “It was big’s my ma’s good plates!”  
  
“See, there you go,” Pietra said cheerfully. “Just work your way up to bigger and better fish, and you’ll impress all the girls in your village. Maybe even some from out of town!”  
  
Donnel looked awed. “You think so, huh?”  
  
“You bet I do!” Pietra said wholeheartedly. “You’ll catch a fish so big, you’ll end up marrying a… a-a-a duchess or something. I’m sure of it!”  
  
That had the intended effect. A big, determined grin sprang to Donnel’s face, and he gripped the fishing pole tighter. “Well’n we’d both better work real hard,” he said enthusiastically. “So I can catch a big fish an’ impress a duchess, an’ so you can get home to the people that matter to you!”  
  
“You’re right!” Pietra agreed. Both shared an excited grin, and then the atmosphere settled back to the comfortable quiet over the pond.  
  
“Y’know somethin’, though, Pietra?”  
  
“What, Donny?”  
  
“If ya don’t find them mem’ries, or yer people, well, I’d be right glad to have you stay here if ya need. Yer cool, y’know that?”  
  
“Well, I do now. Thanks, Donnel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just pretend they fist-bumped right at the end there okay cool


	6. After the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new friend appears-- totally not foreign royalty, by the way.

Maybe it was a bad idea, but Pietra kind of liked going outside after storms.  
  
See, it was because the sun always seemed so much brighter, was his reasoning. Like everything had been washed away— and depending on the severity, that was literal, too. The rainstorms had washed away a good deal of the residual springtime slush colder areas experienced, leaving that to be melted and swept away in the streams. It was kind of nice, actually, even though it was a bit chilly. Good thing he had that sweater!  
  
So even though his glasses had gotten a bit cracked trying to get that fishhook out of his hand, it was still a pretty damn nice morning.  
  
And wandering around the rocky shorelines did give him enough silence to think. Maybe about where’d he’d go next, or trying to dig up any lost memories, or anything at all, really. It was kind of nice having time to himself.  
  
Time to himself, and being the only one awake, meant he was the first to notice signs of a shipwreck.  
  
He saw broken wooden planks and torn ropes washed up on the rocks, with ripped swaths of oiled canvas cloth that would’ve been a sail. Smashed crates with some kind of run-of-the-mill cargo inside— scrap metal, probably, or sacks of now-useless grain. Normal shipwrecky stuff. Not that it wasn’t worth worrying about, because most ships held people and Pietra saw a distinct amount of Not People. Maybe they’d all died in the wreck. That was a sad way to go.  
  
But then Pietra did see something that wasn’t Not People— or _was_ People, to be more correct. Someone lying on the rocky shore, clinging to a semi-dry plank from the ship, with a lot of long, dark hair splayed out on the sand, damp with seawater. Probably half-drowned, but in those frigid waters, leaving someone who’d been _in_ them was probably a really bad idea. Plus, Pietra knew how being passed out in the middle of nowhere felt. He could only hope the stranger on the coastline had all her memories intact.  
  
At least the stranger _looked_ like a her— Even closer, Pietra couldn’t be sure until he ended up crouched next to the unconscious traveler and checking to see if she was still breathing. She was, which was lucky since Pietra had never handled a dead body and wasn’t sure he wanted to.  
  
She looked a lot different than most people he’d seen so far, though— her shirt didn’t have any ties or buttons on it, it was just like a loose wrap tied off by the same rope holding up her green skirt. And her complexion was different, too, but in a different way than Pietra’s was. Lighter rather than darker, and there was a distinct lack of knobby nose bridges or bumpy cheekbones. Maybe she’d come on a vacation cruise that went horribly awry?  
  
Gently, Pietra shook her shoulder, trying to see if she’d wake up. She didn’t, but her eyes shut more tightly and her hand gripped the hilt of her sword— how had that stayed with her all that time?  
  
“I have no idea who you are, but you shouldn’t sleep here,” he said, realizing how dumb that sounded and simultaneously unable to stop himself from saying it. “The water is really cold and you’ll get sick if you sleep after getting soaked with it.”  
  
The stranger made an uninteligible groaning sound, coughing and sputtering. Her eyes opened— dark brown, Pietra noticed, which was kind of a strange thing to notice right away but his face was kind of close anyway. Her lips were blue, he’d noticed, probably because she was soaking wet and it was really cold and the _water_ was really cold.  
  
“I am Say’ri of Chon’sin,” she said, like that was a line she’d rehearsed just in case this exact thing happened, since she didn’t seem to be processing most of what was happening. She struggled to sit up, her hand still clamped around the hilt of her sword, and Pietra helped her.  
  
“I’m Pietra, of… no country in particular, I guess,” he replied. “Are you alright? I mean, you’re probably not, since you _are_ kind of half-drowned, and being shipwrecked on some random shoreline probably isn’t that good for your health. But you’re not hurt, are you?”  
  
Say’ri of Chon’sin did not seem in any hurry to answer, focusing more on waking herself up and prying her hand off the sword hilt. There was another sword, Pietra noticed, strapped to her back. She was lucky it hadn’t come off during the shipwreck. Though, who carried two swords? Unless she was ambidexterous, it seemed awfully difficult.  
  
“Where… where am I?” she managed, looking around. “This isn’t…”  
  
“Probably not where you were supposed to go, I’d guess,” Pietra said with a shrug. “You’re just outside the Farfort, in… Ylisse, I think is how you pronounce it.”  
  
“What am I doing here?” she wondered aloud. “Did the ship… oh.” That would be when the shipwreck bits caught her eye, or at least Pietra would assume so.  
  
“Yeah, it’s probably wrecked,” Pietra brought up. “But you got out alive, and as soon as I get you back to the village, I’ll have them look for other survivors. You must be a really strong swimmer to get to shore, though!”  
  
Say’ri blinked uncomprehendingly. “Other survivors? The storm… was it truly so bad?”  
  
“I haven’t been able to find anyone else,” Pietra admitted. “But I’ve only been out here for maybe ten minutes and four of those were trying to get a pebble out of my shoe.”  
  
A scowl crossed Say’ri’s features. “Fie… I was told we would have clear sailing to Plegia. Now I am on the other side of the world.”  
  
“Couldn’t tell you how anyone manages to mess up that badly, but,” Pietra shrugged, pulling off his long coat-robe-thing and putting it around Say’ri’s shoulders. “Even if you’re not hurt, you’ll get sick if you keep sitting out here, waterlogged like that. There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know!”  
  
He chuckled and stood up, offering a hand for her to take. “C’mon. It won’t take much to get you a hot meal and somewhere dry to rest. I know people.”  
  
Say’ri furrowed her eyebrows, taking the hand and allowing Pietra to pull her up. “You are a very strange man,” she remarked.  
  
“I get that a lot,” he replied, shrugging. “No reason to fight it.”  
  
Say’ri of Chon’sin did not particularly want to let Pietra carry her back to Ma Tinhead’s farm on his back, but he insisted, and there was only so much she could aruge about, waterlogged and half-frozen as she was. In the span of an hour their new houseguest was bathed and wrapped in quilts and given hot cider Ma Tinhead had warmed up on the stove. Her color had improved significantly by then, though she’d been sent straight to the guest bed and told to stay there until she wasn’t so peaked-looking.  
  
Pietra could tell Say’ri wasn’t particularly happy about it.  
  
“I feel like an invalid,” she muttered after Ma Tinhead had puttered away to see about something warm for supper. “Really. I doubt I’m even ill.”  
  
“I wouldn’t argue,” Pietra shrugged as he leaned against the windowsill. “There’s no telling how long you were in the ocean. And ocean water is cold in March— that much I know.”  
  
“I should be trying to get back home,” she insisted. “Not wasting time here. You have my gratitude for assisting me, but—“  
  
“No buts,” Pietra interrupted. “That’s the one conjunction we don’t need right now. Ma Tinhead said you should rest, so, I’m inclined to believe her. She’s pulled me out of tight spots, too!”  
  
“Like with that bandage on your hand?” Say’ri noticed, nodding to the gauze wound around Pietra’s right hand. “What happened there?”  
  
It was on the tip of his tongue to say something like he got it while rescuing a box of kittens from a well that happened to have sharp things on it— but that was a lie and lying was wrong so he didn’t say that.  
  
“I got a fishhook stuck in my hand,” he said instead, and watched Say’ri nod slowly with a wry smile on her face. He could almost tell what she was thinking— _This_ is the man that fished me out of the ocean?  
  
But he was still talking. “So, where is your home, anyway?” he asked. “I mean, you said it was Chon’sin, right, which I’m guessing is a country, but where is it? On a map, I mean?”  
  
Perhaps Say’ri thought he was testing her, to make sure she hadn’t lost any valuable memories in the shipwreck. “It’s to the southeast on the continent of Valm, spread out over mostly several islands. It is Plegia’s westerly neighbor by sea.”  
  
“Plegia,” Pietra muttered. “Hmm. Alright, I bet I can take you there!”  
  
Say’ri did a double take. “You are going to… to take me all the way to the Plegian border _on the other side of Ylisse,_ across _Plegia itself,_ and over the _ocean_ to Chon’sin?”  
  
“And presumably right to your front door,” he shrugged. “Sure, why not?”  
  
“You only just met me,” Say’ri brought up. “And while I suppose you did save my life, why do you seem to want to escort me back home to such an extent?”  
  
Pietra shrugged. “I can’t remember much about what I did before I woke up in a field west of here, but I know I feel like traveling around is sort of what I’m supposed to do, you know? It just feels right. So I figure that if I want to travel, I might as well help people while I’m at it, right?”  
  
Say’ri shook her head, leaning back on the pillows. “You are a very strange man,” she remarked, letting out a sigh.  
  
“You’ve said that before,” Pietra brought up. “Does that mean you’ll allow it?”  
  
“If I cannot discourage you, I see no reason to deny escort,” she admitted. “So let it be. You have my gratitude, Pietra of No Country in Particular.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know they're fucked


	7. Better Too Much than Not Enough

Pietra slept in Donnel’s attic bedroom on a spare mattress that night, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as the fact that he didn’t really do too much sleeping at all. It wasn’t that he was horribly uncomfortable on the floor, of course, he could sleep just about anywhere— but what was keeping him up was the fact he didn’t seem to want to sit still.  
  
He couldn’t stay here. That was the thought that kept returning to him. Even when he did sleep, it was restless and his hazy, purple-tinged dreams smelled like straw and mothballs. He couldn’t recognize any of the images he saw, nor would he know them if he saw them. There were flashes of strange light that he didn’t understand, and bright purple darkness that seemed to consume everything. And something about a griffon?  
  
By the time the rising sun turned the sky crimson and Pietra made himself get up to help Donnel with the chores, he hadn’t slept much at all and he had the strange urge to bang his head on a post in the hopes it’d distract him from the dull pounding.  
  
But he kept his chin up, and if Ma Tinhead noticed the bags under his eyes, she didn’t say anything about it. He also felt the urge to drink thick black sludge that would make him vibrate for hours and fill his mouth with the taste of rubber in the hopes it’d make him wake up. But they didn’t have any of that, so he just smiled and said good morning and started weeding the radishes.  
  
His breath steamed in the air that morning, boots crunching on the frozen dewdrops. Mornings in colder areas really were harsh, he’d noticed, because Southtown’s hadn’t been nearly so cold. Cold still, yes, but the difference was much less stark.  
  
He found himself looking at the road often, though he couldn’t explain why fully. Every time the breeze tugged at his hair and the edges of his heavy coat, he felt the urge to walk in that direction. And it was blowing northwest, out of the Farfort and towards the western edge of Ylisse, if he wasn’t mistaken.  
  
North. That was where his sister was.  
  
Idly, he wondered if she missed him, or indeed, if she knew he was gone.  
  
“Yer gonna have to go soon,” Donnel said from behind him, as he’d paused in carrying a basket full of weeds out to the compost pile. “Ain’t you? That’s why yer lookin’ at the road all sad-like.”  
  
“Yeah,” Pietra mumbled. “I’m not supposed to be here for much longer. And I have to take Say’ri home, too.”  
  
Donnel nodded sagely. “Don’t tell ma that ’til breakfast,” he advised. “Else she’ll load ya down with enough meals to feed an army. Gotta get a last meal in ‘fore travelin’, that’s what ma says. Don’t tell her I said none of that, though.”  
  
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Pietra said with a grateful smile, as he started to walk to the compost pile. (More a mountain than a pile— the heap was nearly taller than Donnel. Clearly compost must build up over time.)  
  
But even with Pietra’s spacing out, the sun rose as normal and heated the ground, and Ma Tinhead made breakfast for five that morning.  
  
Five! It was practically a full house. One more place setting had been squished onto the table, and soon enough it’d have a full meal just as the other four. Ma Tinhead had always wanted a large family, but she was past her prime, and having Donnel was enough. She would admit it was nice having extra help, though, and she liked having more people to fuss over.  
  
The time for breakfast came when the smells of fresh eggs and potatoes and sizzling ham wafted through the house on the air currents. Pietra was sent upstairs to wake Say’ri, who had not quite gotten used to getting up so early (because boats didn’t travel fast enough to give their passengers jet lag and thus the time zone thing wasn’t a problem) and had been allowed to sleep in on account of having nearly frozen the day before. But she had to wake up eventually, mostly because even if Pietra _could_ carry her all the way to Chon’sin, he didn’t really want to and he assumed she didn’t want him to either.  
  
He knocked on the door to the guest room first, then pushed it open and entered with his boots creaking on the floorboards.  
  
Say’ri was still asleep, it seemed, her eyes shut and her breathing steady. She looked somewhat detached, but Pietra didn’t waste time staring at her, and instead rapped lightly on the headboard of the bed.  
  
She didn’t really respond at first, but opened her eyes when he did it again. “I thought that logically, you woud let someone recovering from a shipwreck sleep.”  
  
“Not when there’s breakfast on the table,” he replied. “Trust me, you don’t want to miss that.”  
  
Say’ri took his word for it, and pushed herself out of bed. “Are you really prepared to take me all the way back to Chon’sin?”  
  
“Well, yeah,” he said with a shrug, tugging at the collar of his shirt. “I wouldn’t say something like that if I didn’t mean it. I can’t stay here forever either, you know. I have to find my way back home, too. So I figure that if I don’t really know where I come from, and you do, I can just take you there and maybe figure out where I’m supposed to be along the way! Traveling is much more fun with someone to talk to, at any rate.”  
  
Say’ri blinked at him, tugging Ma Tinhead’s borrowed shawl further around her shoulders. “You talk a lot.”  
  
“Better too much than not enough,” Pietra chuckled. That sounded like a quote from someone close to him, but he didn’t know where. Maybe it was from a book.  
  
Breakfast came and went, and by late morning, Pietra and Say’ri were preparing to leave. The next morning there would be a breakfast for three, just as it always had been. They didn’t need extra guests.  
  
Pietra’s bag was packed full and Say’ri had insisted on carrying the additional satchel full of food for the road, because she may have been half-drowned that time the previous day, but that didn’t mean she was going to be useless.  
  
The goodbyes were all said and done. There was no need to draw it out for too long.  
  
Donnel and his father had accompanied them out through the village, because Mr. Tinhead needed to pick up something and Donnel wanted to see Pietra off. Pietra admitted he lingered a bit, looking at the little town, because he’d grown fond of it in the short time he’d stayed there. Say’ri, however, seemed bothered.  
  
“Something ill is afoot,” she murmured, where Donnel and Mr. Tinhead couldn’t hear. “Why are we lingering?”  
  
“It’d be rude to leave without saying goodbye,” Pietra replied. “Besides, if you’re right and something bad does happen, I don’t want to leave the people without help. It could be something serious.”  
  
Say’ri frowned. “I am a trained warrior with finely honed senses, I know when an attack is about to occur. Any second something could—“  
  
As if on cue, a javelin soared in from nearby with screeching speed, and planted itself in the ground a foot away from Donnel. Immediately the few people out on the main road looked up, watching in fear as a troop of brigands ran in, knocking over crates and carts without ceremony.  
  
Mr. Tinhead glowered at the advancing brigands from behind the silver of his mustache. “Donny, you’d better run.”  
  
“But—“ Donnel tried to protest, looking to Pietra for help, who did not oblige.  
  
“Your dad’s right,” Pietra agreed, setting a hand on his sword. “If it comes to violence, we’ll handle things. Right now, we don’t want anyone to get hurt.”  
 Donnel reluctantly obliged, and ran back home before any of the brigands moved to go after him.  
  
“Except them,” Say’ri frowned, looking to Pietra. “Since… well, they do seem to be attacking. Usually that is what one does when attacked, is fight back.”  
  
“I bet they can be reasoned with,” Pietra guessed. “Not everyone is a chaos-loving war dog, no matter how much they act like it. We’re all human, aren’t we?” He gave an optimistic grin, and not for the first time, Say’ri wondered why this was the man she’d agreed to have escort her back home.  
  
Pietra put his hands out, walking towards the bandit leader, and Mr. Tinhead shook his head in bewilderment.  
  
“Man’s a fool,” he mumbled.  
  
“Aye, sir, he is,” Say’ri mumbled back, her voice wry.  
  
“Hey there!” Pietra called. “Listen, hey, can I have your attention for a moment, gentlemen? I bet we can come to an agreement that doesn’t involve burning, or pillaging, or anything like that, yeah?”  
  
The leader just stared at him, an eyebrow raised. “Boy, we came to burn and pillage. Ain’t nothing else to it!” The rest of the bandits shouted in agreement, raising weapons and torches.  
  
“And burning and pillaging are probably a lot of fun!” Pietra shrugged. “But, I mean, there are plenty of empty villages you can do that to, right? Whoa— hey, you there, with the beard— we’re not gonna burn that shop down! I’m sure all of you are as good a man as the next, we can discuss things without—“  
  
“Kill him,” the leader mumbled, and a handaxe flew at Pietra’s head. The flat of it smacked Pietra in the forehead, sending him stumbling back for a few steps.  
  
“Alright, that _really_ wasn’t necessary,” he tried to say, but a blur in white and green flew past his vision and sliced into one of them with one sword and then another, and then buried one in the brigand’s throat.  
  
Before the group of them could react, Mr. Tinhead had yanked the javelin off the ground and threw it straight past Pietra and towards the brigand leader. It missed just slightly, a gust of wind blowing it cockeyed, but the bulk of it hit the leader in the chest and Pietra cringed at the sickening snapping sound of bone breaking.  
  
And before he could even try to bring diplomacy back into the situation, the lot of them had stormed past him and begun looting and pillaging as they pleased. Pietra drew Pendragon to avoid being smashed to bits by an axe, and parried the blow as cleanly as someone with very little remembered formal training could.  
  
“Why doesn’t anyone respect the value of diplomacy in this day and age?” he wondered aloud as he whacked the brigand in the head with the flat of his blade.  
 “Because there is a time and place for everything,” Say’ri responded, jumping in and swiftly cutting the brigand in two, then tossing her hair off her shoulder. “I respect your peaceful ideology, but I doubt most will listen to reason.”  
  
“I don’t want to kill any of them,” Pietra frowned, sidestepping another blow so the brigand fell into a water trough, and cutting a rope that dropped a bale of hay on him. “They… I don’t know.”  
  
“Is now really the best place to muse upon your connections to these mad men?” Say’ri wondered, wiping the blood off her sword as another one of the brigands came to swing at her. “They kill people. And they are going to kill you too, if you don’t—“  
  
Pietra ducked a handaxe that cut half an inch off his messy hair. “Watch my back?” he guessed, offering Say’ri a grin. “Don’t worry. I can hold my own.”  
  
Say’ri rolled her eyes, but sprinted off to cut an archer’s bow in two and then shove her sword through his torso, yanking it out and spinning it around her hand.  
  
There weren’t many, and they weren’t strong. Pietra, unwilling to kill, pulled his blows and left Say’ri to actually kill them, the polished metal of her twin swords glinting coldly as it plunged into stomachs and cut off limbs. Pietra was glad she was on his side.  
  
Within minutes, the dirt of the road was thick and sticky with blood, and the brigand leader, clutching his broken ribs with one hand and his axe with the other, stared Pietra in the eye and laughed wickedly.  
  
“Castle-born whelp,” he cackled. “Yer not so different from us! You fight like a Plegian soldier!”  
  
He could tell Say’ri was waiting for him to deny it, but he couldn’t. “Maybe I am one,” he said instead, and he could feel a shocked silence spread over the townspeople watching the spectacle in awe. Say’ri, too, stared at him like he’d grown a second head. They knew Plegia as the country of bandits, the country where unruly bands of thieves and ruffians ran wildly on hot desert sands, where a mad king and dark magic and worship of a destructive dragon god reigned supreme. There weren't many people that wholeheartedly believed that, but it was a known fact that collectives of people were much more likely to believe black-and-white ideals, and all it took was a few strawmen to suggest it. It wasn't fair, but then, these things never really were.  
  
“I can’t deny what I am, or where I’m from, or what I may have done,” Pietra said, closing his eyes and clutching Pendragon’s hilt. “I can’t control the past more than any other man. But I can control my present, and I can choose to protect innocent people!”  
  
He acted first, feeling the edges of his vision turn crimson as he slashed at the brigand leader, a blow that cut a gash in the grizzled man’s cheek. He could tell Say’ri wanted to get in there with her swords and finish him off, the way her hands twitched around the hilts, but she didn’t. Why didn’t she? Pietra would probably never know.  
  
The leader sneered, wiping at the gash with his thumb. “Naïve little pup,” he growled. “How long are you gonna keep that up? War is what we’re born for! Peace is a crapshoot made up by whelps like _you._ “ He elbowed Pietra in the chest and sent him backwards, and then he turned tail and ran out of the village.  
  
Say’ri cursed and made to ran after him, but Pietra put a hand on her arm. “Let him go,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “There’s no sense chasing him down now.”  
  
Say’ri crouched next to him, sheathing her swords. “The villagers are staring at you,” she murmured. “Whispering. They think you brought the bandits here.”  
  
“Why? I just finished trying to fend them off,” Pietra frowned. Say’ri didn’t need to answer, because that came to him an instant later. It made his face darken in a scowl, and a little red-tinged voice in the back of his mind told him to make her shut up about things like that. But he didn’t listen to that.  
  
“We should move on,” he said instead, pulling himself back to his feet. “I still have to get you home.”  
  
Ma Tinhead would make dinner for two that night.


	8. A Stench of Darkness

On the way out from the Farfort, Pietra got hit in the head with a rock.  
  
Only he didn’t, because when he stumbled to the side and held the side of his head (because he could _swear_ he felt it gushing hot, sticky blood down over his ear like finicky head wounds always did), there was nothing there. He could feel the sharp pain, the sting, the urge to shout out in surprise and pain, but it faded in seconds to a dull ache.  
  
“What in the seven hells…” he muttered, staring at his hand— his hand that, when pulled away from his head, had no blood on it— like he was just noticing it.  
  
“Did something happen?” Say’ri asked, brows furrowing in concern, because if there was someone around throwing rocks, she was going to have to intervene. The Farfort was still in view, yes, but they were far enough away now that no one would be able to throw that far.  
  
Pietra frowned, shaking off the ache. “I just thought I felt something,” he tried to explain. “It’s strange. Like someone chucked a rock at my head. Only there’s no one here but us.”  
  
Say’ri had her hands on the hilts of her twin swords. “That we know of,” she growled. “Someone could be lying in wait.”  
  
“And why would that happen?” Pietra questioned. “We’re not wanted criminals or brigands— heck, we’re not even very good heroes! Besides, if someone really had thrown a rock at me, there’d be blood, and we’d be able to hear it hit the ground. But there’s no blood, and we didn’t hear any such thing, either.”  
  
Reluctant as she was to admit it, he had a point, so she took her hands off her weapons and pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Should we continue, or…”  
  
Pietra ran a hand back through his hair, which shifted back into place in half a second, and grinned optimistically. “Trust me, it takes more than that to throw me off-course! We’ve got a long road ahead anyway, so it seems best to move on.”  
  
And Say’ri agreed with that, since it was a long way to Plegia and a longer way still across the sea to Chon’sin, and the journey was just beginning. She couldn’t help but think it would be quite a long time before she saw her home again, and even if it had been her decision to leave in the first place, she wished she hadn’t left it so quickly. At least she could’ve said goodbye to her parents in person rather than in a letter Yen’fay would give them. (Of course, she didn’t know what was going to happen once she returned— but it was really best she didn’t.)  
  
Even though their journey was just beginning, Say’ri was starting to have a few concerns about Pietra. He acted like he hadn’t a care in the world beyond where the wind would take him next, like he honestly didn’t need anything aside from ground under his feet and sky over his head, but Say’ri was starting to wonder if that was a ruse. He certainly hadn’t fought like an amnesiac fool during the skirmish at the Farfort, that was for sure. She could swear she’d seen his eyes glow red.  
  
Night fell eventually, as night tends to do with little regard for convenience, and Say’ri was rather suspicious of Pietra’s shortcut to the Northroad— the only road in Ylisse with a branch that led to the pass in the mountains that served as the border for Ylisse and Plegia. Had she been alone, she would’ve just taken a straight line through the mountains, but Pietra was sure that the Northroad was the right way to go. _The less time we take traveling through uncharted wilderness, the better,_ he’d said, to which Say’ri wanted to scoff and just leave him there to go whichever way he so pleased (and she still wasn’t quite sure why she hadn’t), but found that he was probably right. He was right a suspicious amount of the time for a fool.  
  
Nonetheless, they made camp in a safe spot in Ylisse’s southern woods, and Pietra studied his map by the light of an oil lantern while Say’ri hung up a pair of hammocks in the trees. There wasn’t much point in a tent on such a clear night, anyway.  
  
“We can’t be far from the Northroad,” Pietra decided, a quill in one hand and one of the odd sandwiches he’d packed prior to leaving the Farfort in the other. “If we start early tomorrow, we should be able to reach it by noon-ish.”  
  
“Noon-ish,” Say’ri hummed, inspecting the sandwich. She was suspicious of this odd food, with the wheaty baked slice of something and the odd brown paste and the dark fruity-smelling substance layered one on top of the other and slightly squashed from being packed tightly in a wooden box with at least twenty others of its kind, wrapped in cloth to keep the crumbs from getting everywhere. She still wasn’t entirely clear on what ‘bread’ even was, though it seemed such a staple of these Ylissean people’s diets, she was slightly afraid to ask. Honestly, she had half a mind to return the sandwich and catch a fish somewhere— at least that was familiar.  
  
“Provided we don’t run into any trouble, anyway,” he shrugged, words muffled with half-chewed sandwich. “Hey, are you gonna eat your sandwich?”  
  
“I am,” she said, pursing her lips. “What, exactly, is _in_ it?”  
  
“Peanut butter and jelly,” he replied, as if that explained everything. “Have you… never seen peanut butter before? It’s that brown pasty stuff. It’s made from mashed-up peanuts and oil and things, it’s really good.”  
  
“And what is the other thing?” Say’ri asked, inspecting the contents of the sandwich. “The… dark substance.”  
  
“It’s kind of like fruit, but it’s cut up and sugared and steeped until it’s gooey,” Pietra tried to explain, making a variety of vague hand gestures that did nothing to actually explain. “I made that one with strawberry.”  
  
“Strawberry,” Say’ri repeated. She knew what that was, at least.  
  
“I packed enough of these things to get us at least to the Northroad,” he said assuredly, patting his bag. “And then some, just in case we meet somebody who needs it. Once we get into Plegia, though, we’ll need to restock.”  
  
Say’ri got a bad feeling that was because he’d neglected to bring any other food, and prayed that wasn’t actually the case. She wasn’t particularly used to being the responsible one— on all the other trips she’d taken, Yen’fay was the one who kept things organized. Say’ri could fight, sure, but could she keep a trip on track? That clearly remained to be seen.  
  
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up without warning, like the instants before a strike of lightning where all was still. And then a dented handaxe spiraled out of the undergrowth and flew past Pietra’s head, either because the axe’s owner had horrible aim or because Pietra had dodged faster than Say’ri thought he should be able to. (Clearly, this man seemed to defy logic.)  
  
“What in—“ he started to say, reaching for his sword. Say’ri had launched herself into a fighting stance in half a second, swords drawn and sandwich forgotten on the cloth it’d been wrapped in. Bandits, maybe, though the presence Say’ri felt hadn’t seemed quite like it. It was slower, and colder, like something that hadn’t moved in a long, long time.  
  
Pietra held his sword— Pendragon, the fool had named it— with both hands, scanning the edge of the little circle of light created by their lantern. Say’ri didn’t register it until a second later, but they had both backed up until their backs were nearly touching, like they’d been fighting together for ages.  
  
“I smell dark magic,” he mumbled, as the sound of shuffling footsteps on all sides grew louder. “Whatever is that’s here, it _reeks_ of the stuff.”  
  
As an afterthought, he sniffed the air and grimaced, though Say’ri didn’t see it. “And they just plain reek, too.”  
  
Say’ri would have had a response (a slightly snippy one, but a response nonetheless), were it not for the fact that several pairs of glowing crimson eyes appeared then. Acting first, Say’ri pulled a knife out of her shirt and threw it, lodging the little blade between the eyes of one of the creatures. And to her shock, it barely responded, though something was spurting from the wound— not blood.  
  
“What are these vile creatures?” she sputtered.  
  
She heard Pietra scowl behind her. “Whatever they are, there’s a lot of them.”  
  
“How many?” Say’ri asked. “And kindly refrain from saying ‘a lot.’”  
  
“Twelve, fourteen,” he guessed. “Give or take. But more might be on the way. We’re probably the tastiest little morsels in the forest right now.”  
  
“Oh, lovely,” Say’ri sighed. As they shuffled closer, very slowly, she spotted bits of battered leather armor, links of rusty chains, the dull edges of bronze weapons. They breathed heavily, had eyes empty save for the red glow, and what came out of their wounds appeared to be _acid._  
  
The stench of death. Acid for blood. A shambling, shuffling pace. Either the dead were walking the Earth, or Pietra’s sandwich had caused a hallucination.  
  
Seconds passed, but they didn’t move any further. Pietra had not acted yet, nor did Say’ri dare until another opening came her way.  
  
Say’ri counted five seconds until Pietra broke the heavy silence.  
  
“They’re waiting their turn,” he murmured. “And it’s our turn now. You’ve already gone, so after I go, they’ll attack. How many can you take?”  
  
“At once?” Say’ri guessed. “Four, perhaps five, depending on how strong they are.”  
  
Pietra furrowed his brow. “Alright. I can work with that. Just fall back if there are too many.”  
  
“Aye,” Say’ri mumbled. He sounded like he knew what he was doing, but at this point she wasn’t sure what to think of him anymore. He certainly couldn’t be a buffoon all the time. Perhaps it _was_ all an act, though she couldn’t think what for.  
  
Pietra jumped forwards, slashing one of the creatures across the stomach and releasing the pudrid smell of death into the air, and then they attacked.  
  
They moved faster than Say’ri had thought, and soon she was surrounded by the filthy things. They had awful aim, but even with two swords, Say’ri couldn’t do very much damage. She’d have to attack twice with each to be able to actually kill them. As such, Pietra’s sword was stronger, but he was slower, and by the time it appeared to be his turn once more, he’d been struck at least three times. A blade had grazed his hand, and something had cracked a lens of his glasses.  
  
And now it was their turn once more. Pietra thrust his sword through the creature separating himself and Say’ri, and the thing melted into a pile of sludge that smelled uneasily like sewage, which dissolved into the ground and left behind a patch of mud where, in all likelihood, nothing would ever grow again. Say’ri sent her dual swords through another and got the same result, her back to Pietra’s once more.  
  
They weren’t very strong, Say’ri gathered, and they swung blindly, rarely ever hitting. The bandits in the Farfort had been tougher and faster, but there had only been around seven of them. The creatures had at least twice that, and more kept coming in waves, chipping gradually away at Say’ri and Pietra until Say’ri fell to one knee somewhere around the third wave, supporting herself on a sword.  
  
“Fie upon me, they never cease,” she puffed out. “Where do they end?”  
  
Pietra frowned, scanning the area for an opening to escape. Perhaps, he thought, if their leader was destroyed, the rest would follow suit. Though with no leader in sight, maybe he needed to find another way out.  
  
“I’m going to try something crazy,” he decided. “Hold your ground until I get back, if this works. It may not.”  
  
Say’ri cursed under her breath, gripping the hilt of her sword. Before she could say anything about being sure it _did_ work, he’d begun.  
  
He could tell from the sound that the fourth wave was on its way, so there was no time like then to pull it off. He took a running start towards a big rock, launched himself off it through sheer force of will, and stabbed his sword into the trunk of a tree as a handhold. He couldn’t remeber if he’d ever climbed a tree before, but he hadn’t yet died, so he’d just pretend he knew what he was doing on the assumption that he’d fail if he allowed himself to think about it.  
  
He left the sword in the trunk and swung off of it, landing on a lower branch that shook and creaked unpleasantly beneath his weight. There was no time to think— he bolted for the next tree, and then the next, leaving a path in the treetops of cracked and broken branches that simply were not meant to hold the weight of a grown man and the extra fifteen pounds his bag held.  
  
Soon it got dark, the sounds of battle and shuffling quieter but still there in his ears, but he was succeeding in his plan. The creatures were turning their attention away from Say’ri and towards the sound of breaking branches— and thus, towards Pietra.  
  
That done and Say’ri left with a number more manageable for her, Pietra finally dropped to the ground before his target— an undead, smelley mass much larger than the others with an axe the size of a door.  
  
The leader of the creatures wasted no time swinging that axe at him, letting out a great bellow. Pietra, now, pulled out his tome with the dry sound of pages flipping. The sky crackled and clouded, and Pietra called a spark of lightning towards the beast that did little to harm him but did set his greasy scraggles of hair on fire, giving Pietra more light to see.  
  
He smirked as the creature roared, breathing foul purple smoke, and tried to see what was happening behind him. The thing stomped his feet, trampling bushes beneath them and altogether causing a lot of ruckus— which was exactly what Pietra needed.  
  
Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw the undead underlings heeding the distress call of their leader. If he was counting right, that meant there were only three left attacking Say’ri— perfect.  
  
Now, any other mage would’ve called it horribly reckless and a terrible misuse of equipment, but this was life or death. He launched himself up another tree and threw the book down between the leader’s feet. And then he whispered an incantation, and everything blew up at once.  
  
It was like staring down the maw of a thunderbolt. Caesma, he still referred to the tome as, was not a very strong tome. On the scale of tomes on the market, actually, she was rather weak. But with all the enemies in one place and with the right incantation, Pietra could sacrifice the rest of the uses of the tome to cause a great, painful blast of light that shot up into the sky and made the monsters howl in pain.   
  
Pietra took this opportunity to run.  
  
Even the monsters that had been attacking Say’ri had been temporarily blinded.  
  
“What did you do?” she immediately shouted at him, looking at him like he was insane— for which he didn’t blame her.”  
  
“Met the leader, sacrificed my equipment, bought us enough time to escape,” he explained breathlessly. “You can run, right?”  
  
“Aye, but—“  
  
“Then run. Chew me out later, yeah?” He took her hand, gave a sheepish little grin over his shoulder, and ran, giving Say’ri little choice in the matter but to curse in a foreign tongue and sprint with him.  
  
He promised to give Pendragon and Caesma a proper memorial once his life was no longer in danger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artistic license taken with the combat bits, shh.


	9. A Bit of Blunt Trauma

“YOU _CRETIN!”_  
  
Pietra winced, touching one of his ears. He’d only known Say’ri for three days and she was already yelling at him, her accent twining around her words like vines on a trellis. The outpost on the Northroad was at least twenty yards away, but they could probably hear her from there. In fact, the lone shopkeeper had probably wondered what in the world that screech could possibly have been, and the blacksmith had checked the bellows in concern that they were squawking again. Say’ri had quite a pair of lungs, it seemed, if need be.  
 “Okay, in my defense,” he brought up, once his ears stopped ringing. “It worked, didn’t it?”  
  
“Oh, indeed it did,” Say’ri huffed, folding her arms and rolling her eyes. “Though you nearly _set the forest on fire,_ it did work! Thank you, Pietra, for successfully doing _nothing_ to several foes I’m _certain_ I could have defeated. Now the next group of travelers to go through there will be faced with those foul things!”  
  
“That’s not entirely fair,” Pietra tried to say, but Say’ri wasn’t finished.  
  
“Might I also point out that you effectively just _destroyed your weapons_ by using them in that fool strategy,” she added, jabbing a finger towards him. “And now what are you to do? Swing your fists at the next group of bandits we come across? Attempt to talk them down as you did in the Farfort? Need I remind you how stunningly well that went?”  
  
Pietra let out a mildly-irate sigh. “Why exactly do you care so much, anyway? You didn’t lose any of _your_ weapons. How many more do you have stashed on your person, anyway?”  
 “Seven, but that isn’t—“  
  
“By all accounts, there’s no reason for you to be so angry about this. I’m just your escort! So long as you have your health and your weapons, what does it matter what I do with mine, to you?” As he spoke, Say’ri’s face flushed in anger. Perhaps he’d struck a nerve.  
  
Say’ri sputtered something unintelligible, and Pietra had to admit it was a little amusing. Even recovering from hypothermia back in the Farfort, she seemed very collected and dignified. Until, apparently, she got angry, and then stringing together a sentence was difficult. He had no business finding it funny, of course, but he wasn’t laughing.  
  
“Forgive me for _caring_ about someone other than myself!” she finally spat. “In the past three days, you have fished me out of the ocean, defended a town from bandits after a critical diplomacy failiure, survived solely on odd sandwiches, gotten us lost on a simple trail, and lain your life on the line to drive off a group of the undead. I fail to see why it’s so odd I may have some semblance of care for you. You’ll get yourself killed if I don’t!”  
  
Pietra smirked. “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you? A peace-loving, reckless fool with a shoe for a brain— does that sound about right?”  
  
“And does that lack reason?” Say’ri retorted, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I think not. Honestly, I have half a mind to believe you really do not know what you’re doing!”  
  
“But you’re still alive,” he brought up. “And so am I.”  
  
He had a point. Say’ri was getting frustrated with how often that happened. She almost wished he’d just act as intelligent as he was— but then, that would probably get annoying fairly quickly. As it was, she was just a bit exasperated.  
  
Say’ri let out a huff, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Yes. Yes, we are still alive. Thinking on it, it could be much worse. I suppose I must give a few points for sheer dumb luck. But mayhap you should kindly refrain from such fool strategies before one of us is killed!”  
  
“Alright, that’s fair,” Pietra admitted, though Say’ri could tell he was only saying that because he didn’t want to fight with her about it. “I should find myself a new weapon then, yeah? I wonder what I can find in town…”  
  
‘Town’ was stretching it. More accurately it could be called an outpost, a collection of buildings on either side of a weed-choked gravel road. It was called Brachenwood Outpost, which Say’ri could tell because the bottommost sign on a post sticking out of the ground read _Brachenwood: you are here._ A sign pointing north read _Regna Ferox, 4 days,_ one pointing roughly west read _Plegia Border, 1/2 day,_ and one pointing east read _Ylisstol, 1 day._ Half of an arrow stuck out from the weather-beaten wood of the Plegia sign, a detail Say’ri couldn’t help but feel had a story. There was a general store that sold traveling needs like dried food and fuel and supplies, a pathetic-looking forge likely only used for tools, an open-air stable for horses and other animals, and a tiny inn whose only claim to even being an inn was the crude sign hanging above the door. ( _Brachenwood Inn,_ it read. And then in smaller letters, just below: _No livestock._ ) The post office seemed to be a tree with an image of an envelope hammered into the trunk, above a set of empty cubbyholes for outgoing mail. The postmaster’s desk was empty, as was the mailing log— clearly the postmaster had better sense than to simply sit out there when he knew that the likelihood someone would need to send a letter was very, very low. The last of the buildings had a sign without words that Say’ri could see, and had no defining characteristics of any other establishment that would suit a tiny outpost. She assumed it was a tavern.  
  
“Charming little place,” Pietra remarked, glancing in the yellowed windows of the general store. “Very cozy.”  
  
If his definiton of ‘cozy’ was ‘completely desolate,’ then Say’ri would have to agree— though she thought better of saying that. The Farfort had been tiny, but at least it had had more than six buildings. It was a far cry from the the Imperial City, and the juxtaposition actually made her feel a little homesick. Perhaps she should write to her brother, tell him about what happened and that she was alright— but mail over such distances was slow, even with letter carriers on flying mounts. By the time he got the letter, circumstances could’ve changed, or she could be dead, and there wouldn’t have been any point. Besides, she’d wanted to travel, to see new things and experience new things without the stifling expectations that came with royalty. Perhaps she was just getting a little more than what she bargained for.  
  
In the time it took Say’ri to muse upon those thoughts, Pietra had gone into the store and came out with a ladle.  
  
“His name is Eguardo,” he said proudly, as if expecting Say’ri to clap, which she did not. She could only stare at him, completely dumbstruck, baffled by the fact that this was a man who could go into the only thing that could half-pass for an armory in a hundred miles and come out with possibly the _least_ effective of anything the store could’ve held. A skillet would’ve been better— at least that had a decent heft to it.  
  
“Oh, splendid,” Say’ri managed. “We could be attacked any moment by ruffians or wild animals or walking corpses, and you plan to defend yourself with a tool used for cooking.” It was official— whatever Pietra did from then on, it wouldn’t surprise her.  
  
“Hey, it’s better than nothing,” he brought up, which wasn’t false. “It’s got a bit of weight to it, but it’s light enough that I can still swing it and do some damage. Sure, only blades can really kill something, but a bit of blunt trauma can really wreck their day.”  
  
Say’ri opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it again. For her own sanity, she had to stop trying to wrap her mind around his logic. Trying would only give her a bigger headache.  
  
“I think I will go practice,” she decided. “T’would be a good idea if you were to see about getting us rooms at the inn.”  
  
Say’ri did not stick around to see his response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this and all of the next chapter in one night but unfortunately i had to split it up bc otherwise it'd be too long.


	10. Crimson

Midafternoon faded to twilight, and the owners of the businesses in Brachenwood Outpost lit the lanterns out front. Though few travelers came quite this far south, some did, and for those, Brachenwood lit its lamps. It wouldn’t do for a town that made its business off of travelers to appear unfriendly, after all.  
  
Of course, Say’ri paid no attention to that. Her world had narrowed to the blades in her hands and the ground beneath her feet, eyes shut to the fading orange light of the sunset. Vision was irrelevant then— she practiced her forms as easily as breathing, as if the twin blades were extensions of her arms. There wasn’t a step out of place, not the slightest movement of her eyelid she wasn’t in complete and total control of. The rhythm with which she stepped forward, pulled back, blocked with one blade while attacking with the other was reminiscent of a dance, fast and graceful and incredibly deadly.  
  
It was magnificent to watch, and Pietra wondered if she was keeping time in her head. _One_ two three four, _one_ two three four, her very breaths in time with the motion, her entire being devoted to the form. It was very much like watching a dance, though Pietra figured most dancers didn’t keep seven knives on their person every hour of the day.  
  
When the form closed like fading notes of a song, Pietra took that moment to make his presence known.  
  
“It’s getting late,” he called. “I got us a room, but since I don’t have any money, I’ll work off what I owe the inkeeper. You should come inside and eat something. Nice forms, by the way.”  
  
“Later,” Say’ri called back. “I’m nearly finished. How long were you watching?”  
  
Pietra shrugged. “Not long. Can I ask why you keep repeating the same forms, though? It seems to me doing it once is probably enough.”  
  
“I have to _know_ it,” Say’ri tried to explain. “I cannot waste seconds of battle thinking about what comes next, I only have an instant to act. In a true skirmish, it would be much faster— the form is designed to end a battle before it begins.”  
  
That didn’t sit well with Pietra. “So if you think you’re about to be attacked, you just… go? You don’t think about what you’re doing?”  
  
“If I thought about it, my opponent would take my life before I took his,” Say’ri reasoned. “He who strikes first lands the final blow.”  
  
“What if it’s a misunderstanding?” Pietra asked, and the question was innocent enough. “Or what if your attacker could’ve been an ally instead? Then you would’ve just killed someone for no good reason.”  
 She frowned. “I fail to see your point. If I am being attacked, the only option is to end the battle quickly to preserve my own life. Anything else would be suicide.”  
  
“That seems reckless,” Pietra remarked. “And exchanging someone else’s life in favor of your own sounds wrong. Aren’t they a person, too?”  
  
“What choice have I if my life is in danger?” she asked, lifting her shoulders and shaking her head like she didn’t understand any other options. “In battle, I have no time to ponder about it. The people around me are either my enemies or my allies, and if they are my enemy, I cut them down. That is it.”  
  
Pietra paused, folding his arms pensively. “I’m beginning to see why we can’t agree on anything,” he mused. “You’re all for starting a fight if it means you get out alive. It’s like you’re trying to prove something.”   
  
“And what do _you_ know?” Say’ri scoffed, feeling a little affronted at the accusation with little idea why. “You avoid bloodshed even when it could mean the cost of your own life and the lives of those around you. You think that with the right words, you can stop a battle— and when that fails, you resort to sheer dumb luck! I must wonder how it is you’ve managed to survive this long.”  
  
Pietra’s brow furrowed. “What’s so wrong with protecting people? At least I think about the larger picture. You act like your life is the only one in the equation when it’s just not true. That’s a little selfish, don’t you think?”  
  
The discussion was heating up rapidly, and Pietra could see an angry flush rise to Say’ri’s cheeks. “Selfish?” she sputtered. “What right have you—“  
  
“It’s true, isn’t it,” he interrupted, leaning dangerously on the edge of saying something he probably shouldn’t. “That’s what it is, it’s selfish! And you call _me_ the reckless one, when here you are, jumping into battle without thinking about anyone else, and you say I’d get myself killed if you weren’t here to stop me. I’m beginning to think you only agreed to this so you’d have someone to order around, like… like some kind of _princess.”_  
  
“How _dare_ you!” Say’ri hissed. “Lecturing me about selfishness! You agreed to escort me back to Chon’sin and you said it was to _help people,_ when all you’ve done is make foolish plans and get yourself lost traveling north. If you say I act like a princess, then what does that make you? Do you think yourself a hero for aiding a damsel in a time of need? Do you think me a testament to your so-called generosity?”  
  
“Gods, what is your problem with me?” Pietra finally growled out in frustration, a hand tugging at his hair. “Nothing is ever good enough! I’m either a fool for doing something to keep us both alive or a coward for doing anything else! Just what is it you _want?_ I can’t keep running in circles trying to keep us alive when I know you’re just going to lecture me about it!”  
  
“I should never have gone with you!” Say’ri exploded, though she knew it was an awful thing to say. “I would rather take my chances alone than be dragged around like this! In fact, perhaps you ought to have just let me die and I would not have had to put up with this— no, with _you!”_  
  
Pietra saw the instant of regret that flickered across her face as soon as she said it, but at that moment, he didn’t care. _She_ was the one being selfish about all of it, calling him a fool one minute and a coward the next, just because he thought about people other than himself.  
  
“Yeah, maybe I should’ve,” he said coldly, in a voice that wasn’t quite his, the edges of his vision going crimson. “Maybe we’d both just be better off if we hadn’t met.”  
  
He could practically see the smoke coming out of Say’ri’s ears then— she was a forest fire burning all in its path and he was unforgiving mountain rock that chilled to the bone. Later on both would admit they had crossed lines they should have left alone, been blinded by the fact that they both stubbornly thought their way was right and refused to acknowledge the other’s point of view. But then, neither were thinking about anything but what was happening at that precise moment, a moment of thick, angry tension that stretched into two full seconds that felt like years, while each waited for the other to turn and leave.  
  
Almost too fast for Pietra to see, an arrow came out of nowhere, nicking his ear and grazing Say’ri’s cheek before embedding itself with a resonant thud in the ground. Immediately they each turned a full semicircle, backs facing one another like they had fought together for years, and mutually agreed that they would part ways once and for all after the battle.  
  
“More of these things,” Pietra mumbled, drawing Eguardo the ladle off his back.  
  
“Fie, they’re everywhere,” Say’ri mumbled back. “How many?”  
  
“Less,” Pietra guessed. “About eight. Their boss is nearby, too. I’ll keep the underlings away from you while you take on the leader.”  
  
“Aye,” Say’ri nodded, the final word they exchanged before the battle.  
  
In half a second, Say’ri had vanished to attack the leader, leaving Pietra to draw the attention of the subordinates— which was easy to do. He whacked one in the head with Eguardo and the other seven turned to glare at him, empty eyes and rotting flesh and all. Pietra was quick to find that if he whacked them enough, they’d melt into goo that would probably prevent anything from ever growing in that spot again. And Say’ri said a ladle was a useless weapon! He almost cackled to himself at that— _All hail the power of the ladle!_ — but luckily didn’t.  
  
It only took a minute for Pietra to take care of the underlings, and when they were all reduced to piles of mush, he allowed himself a grin.  
  
“Yeah, you like that?” he taunted one of the piles, jabbing Eguardo at it. “You want a piece of this, punk? Well you get nothing!” He hadn’t really thought about anything he said then— it just seemed like the thing to say.  
  
Say’ri, however, wasn’t having quite so much fun.  
  
She supposed it could’ve been worse. There could be more waves coming, the sheer number of it being what overwhelmed her. But as it stood, it could’ve been better, too.  
  
As the bulky undead leader belched acid towards her, swinging its axe up to deliver a blow Say’ri knew would be her last, she used an instant to think about calling Pietra for backup— the next to shut that thought down and roll to the side as the axe carved into the ground and sent stones and clods of dirt flying. Gods, she hated these things.  
  
The creature bellowed in frustration, its stinking breath nearly making Say’ri collapse, and swung the flat of his axe to her side like a battering ram. The ground ripped itself out from under her and she flew three yards back, crashing into Pietra and making the both of them roll unceremoniously on the hard ground.  
  
“That was an axe,” Pietra managed, pulling himself to one knee. “How much damage do you think you did to him?”  
  
Say’ri pushed herself up on her arms, blinking the stars from her vision. “Gods smite this creature,” she muttered, a more eloquent way of saying what she really meant. “I did a bit of damage, but mostly I only succeeded in angering it.”  
  
“Wow, it’s a tough one,” Pietra whistled appreciatively. “Points to you for not dying!”  
  
“My gratitude,” Say’ri grumbled, insincerity plainly evident. “I suppose you think you can do better?”  
  
He gave a sarcastic smirk. “Thanks. I think if we work together, we might be able to beat him. He’s big, right? So his soft spots are big, too.”  
  
“What are you planning?” she asked.  
  
“Nothing,” he said with a grin. “I’m just glad you consider it a plan. I’ll hold his attention in front and you go for the back of his neck.”  
  
“Aye,” she nodded, launching herself to her feet and sprinting around the monster’s back. This was not the time to argue.  
  
Pietra picked himself up and grabbed a stone off the ground about the size of his fist, and chucked it at the creature. It hit him square in the eye— not enough to kill him, but enough to get his attention.  
  
“Hey, pick on someone your own size!” he taunted. “Or are you too stupid to know the difference?”  
  
The monster roared— if Pietra had to pick a word for what it sounded like, it would be _DIE!_ — though Pietra seriously doubted the creature understood what he was saying at all.  
  
In true Pietra fashion, he started whaling on the monster’s knee with his ladle, which didn’t do very much to the thing, but it did make it stop and watch stupidly, wondering in its puny zombie mind why this tiny man was hitting its knee. It didn’t seem to notice Say’ri climbing up its back, her swords sheathed and a knife clutched in one hand, which meant Pietra was doing his job.  
  
It finally decided Pietra was an annoying fly that needed to be swatted, and raised its axe again, by which point Say’ri was gripping the thing’s skin and about to jam her knife into the back of its neck.  
  
And that was the point Pietra’s plan fell apart.  
  
The creature reached around and pulled Say’ri off its back by the back of her shirt, her knife landing on the ground somewhere behind it. It roared as Say’ri fought, trying uselessly to free herself, though she got her wish in the worst way when the monster tossed her to the side. She skidded, digging a painful-looking trench in the soft dirt. Pietra was pretty sure she was still moving, but it was slow and pained, not quickly enough to notice that the monster had its axe raised, ready to take care of this annoying fly.  
  
Thought stopped. Pietra’s vision went red.  
  
It felt like time slowed down. He dropped the ladle and ran into the path of the axe, raising one hand like he was about to do magic— but he didn’t have a tome, how could he do magic— and as the axe made its way down in a deadly arc of tarnished iron, it seemed like the monster tore itself apart. Something bubbled up from its inside, oozing out of its eyes and mouth and nose, turning its bones to dark violet fire and undead flesh to ash. The axe fell and hit the ground the same moment the creature gave a final bellow, destroyed by the magic that had given it life, and the red faded from Pietra’s eyes.  
  
He felt dizzy, and vaguely registered a pain like searing heat through his right arm— only his right arm wasn’t connected to him anymore, it was on the ground, in a puddle of dark red blood that could only be his, and he could feel more blood gushing out of where it’d once been, soaking into the tattered edge of his shirt and down his side.  
  
“Ouch,” he mumbled. “That’s annoying.”  
  
The ground rushed up to meet him, and everything went black before it did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well yknow it couldve been worse right


	11. Greeeeeeeema

When his eyes opened again, Pietra wondered if he was dead. Then he decided he wasn’t, because he hurt too much to be dead. Logically, you wouldn’t be able to feel pain after death, because there would be no point, which led Pietra to the conclusion that some sort of Thing he couldn’t understand had happened. Perhaps whatever giant that had stepped on him had realized _oh, there’s something stuck to the bottom of my shoe_ and peeled him off then, leaving him a tenderized lump of Pietra, minus an arm, marinating in agony on an unfamiliar stone floor. The lack of an arm struck him as a little bit odd, but not overly so, since it wasn’t inconveniently gushing blood everywhere. He could deal with losing an arm if he didn’t have to mess with the bloody business that came with having a carbon-based physical body.  
  
The room was very dark, but vague shapes in purple light reminded Pietra of a cathedral, circular with tall columns and a dome-type thing at the top. There was a thing like an altar in the center that cast an eerie purple glow on the floor, the same glow that Pietra saw coming off his hand when he lifted the remaining one into his field of vision. Bioluminescence was kind of awesome, he admitted, even if he did figure he wasn’t _actually_ bioluminescent in reality. He probably would’ve noticed.  
  
Against all better judgement, Pietra sat up, experimentally flexing the fingers on his remaining hand and watching the purple glow shift. He followed that up to his shoulder, down across his bare chest, over to the other arm that cut off just below his shoulder joint. There seemed to be more purple glowing coming from there, where his arm had been severed— he couldn’t see it, but it looked more like someone had taken a perfect cross-section of a jam jar full of purple antifreeze than like the aftermath of a traumatic amputation with a giant axe. He thought about poking it, and decided that would be really, really strange.  
  
Everything still hurt, of course, but Pietra was getting used to it. He set his hand on his knee and shoved himself to his feet, the soles of his boots squawking awkwardly as he stumbled on the smooth floor. Reflexively, he held out his arm for balance— it felt like the other one was going to move, but there was nothing there, so it didn’t. But he didn’t fall, and by some miracle, his glasses didn’t make a break for it, either.  
  
There was a low growl coming from the altar, to which Pietra had turned his back in the process of standing up. It probably wasn’t a good idea to turn around then, but never let it be said that Pietra always listened to the advice he gave himself.  
  
Only it was odd, then, because although Pietra _knew_ he was standing on his own two feet, six yards away from the altar, with one arm and no shirt, he was also crouched on the other end of the altar with two arms and the big purple coat he always wore. Except there could only be one Pietra, so that was kind of impossible, wasn’t it?  
  
“Uh,” he said without thinking, getting not-Pietra’s attention. Only he couldn’t leave that as-is, so he kept going, despite the fact that it was a bad idea. “Hey, who are you? Are you me? I mean, if you’re trying to be me, you made a pretty crucial mistake regarding limb count.”  
  
Not-Pietra turned, getting to his feet on the glowing purple altar. Pietra immediately had the sense that not-Pietra was something entirely different, not even really human. It had six eyes, for one— two in the normal places, though glowing red, and then two more sets just below that looked like they’d been cut into its skin, which was a shade of clammy gray like those walking corpses he and Say’ri had fought. Pietra half-expected it to lurch forwards and belch acid at him, but frighteningly, this odd corpse-Pietra seemed far more intelligent than those things.  
  
It examined Pietra like he was a half-dead cricket. “Oh. The child is here— and I look at him in mild surprise, because I doubted he would make it.”  
  
“Make it where?” Pietra, asking the obvious questions. “Where am I, and who are you?”  
  
“Who am I, he asks,” the creature hummed, the soles of its boots tapping on the smooth surface of the altar. “Who, he asks, am I? What a foolish thing to say. He points like an infant faced with a looking-glass, who cannot recognize his own reflection. I laugh at him. Ha ha!”  
  
The sound of the far-too-purposeful laughter echoed through the cathedral, and it only continued when the echo faded. Pietra didn’t dare speak.  
  
“Does he not recognize himself?” the creature continued, stepping off the altar like it was nothing, not bothering to hide the disdain for which it looked at Pietra. “Oh, yes, perhaps I come from a time when he is older. But I should think, for his simple and unenlightened mind, he should know his own face!”  
  
Pietra had the urge to smack this pretentious imitation of his body across the room, but he didn’t, and watched as the creature paced, hands tucked behind its back, parading around in Pietra’s body like he owned it.  
  
“But I shall be patient,” the creature sighed through its nose. “For he is young. So I shall grant him the answer, and he understands this will be the last time I award him such mercy. I tell him, now, that I am him— and he will know that he is me, too; we are one and the same.”  
  
Pietra blinked. “Wait, what? I think I’d remember if I talked like that.”  
  
The creature glowered. “The child shows insolence. Does he not recognize his God?”  
  
“Look, I can’t just keep calling you ‘hey, you,’” Pietra sighed. “I don’t know about any gods, capital G or no. I’ll deal with your weird-ass register if you just tell me who you are.”  
  
The creature barked out a laugh. “The boy thinks himself a man! How truly ignorant.”   
Pietra frowned, scratching at his head. “Wait, no, hold on, I’ve got your name somewhere. Purple, six eyes, serious attitude… ah, you’re Grimma, right?” He grinned proudly at having gotten… well, _most_ of the name right.  
  
The creature growled. “He mocks me,” it muttered.  
  
“Hey, I’m just returning the favor,” Pietra shrugged. “So, Grimma. Any particular reason you’re here?”  
  
“Well first of all it’s _Grima,”_ the creature huffed. “Grima! Long ‘i,’ it isn’t that hard! Of course, these pathetic human syllables do little to contain my true nature, but I suppose I must make sacrifices for my cause.”  
  
“Greeeeeema, right,” Pietra nodded, stretching out the sound purely to be annoying. “What cause, if I may ask?”  
  
Grima’s eye twitched, and it devolved into angry mumbling to itself for a minute. Pietra caught the words ‘vessel,’ ‘child,’ ‘fragile human flesh,’ and ‘pathetic split of power,’ as well as a bit about hellfire and chaos and how the world will submit to the might of the Fell Dragon or be consumed in darkness, which sounded important but Pietra wasn’t quite sure why.  
  
“You fucked up!” Grima finally shouted. “Inconsiderate little— _that!”_  
  
Grima pointed an accusing finger at Pietra’s missing arm. Pietra glanced at it, and shrugged. “Yeah, well, you can’t win ‘em all.”  
  
He heard Grima snarl under his breath, half his face twitching. “You are a fool. If I were only at full power…”  
  
Grima’s form did something very strange then— it flickered, switching to a young woman Pietra’s age, with the same thick glasses and dark skin and ruddy-red hair that refused to cooperate with gravity, though she was smaller and shorter by at least a head. Though before Pietra could study the other form, it was back to a mirror of Pietra’s.  
  
“Wait, back up,” Pietra decided, furrowing his eyebrows. “Was that… oh, cripes.”  
  
Pietra was partially Grima. Pietra had a twin sister. Grima had split his power. Grima had a second vessel. Grima’s form had changed into a girl that looked eerily like Pietra…  
  
He took it a step further. Grima was weaker in a split-power state, but that more than likely meant that killing one of the vessels wouldn’t be the end of Grima. As it was, Grima didn’t seem to be able to focus all of his power into one of them. The way Grima had complained about Pietra’s lack of an arm made Pietra guess that, as a vessel, Grima wanted him to stay in one piece and relatively healthy, likely because Grima was directly connected to Pietra’s body.  
  
Which made Pietra think again as to just _why_ Marth needed him to find his sister.  
  
“I need to get out of here,” Pietra decided, running his remaining hand through his hair. “Crap— how do I get out of here?”  
  
“You want out?” Grima snarled. “Oh, I’ll get you _out.”_  
  
Faster than Pietra could react, Grima swung a fist into Pietra’s cheek and everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise it has a plot


End file.
